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Saturday, May 30, 2015

FIFA have not had an easy week of it, what with seven of its being arrested on corruption and bribery charges at the request of none other than the FBI, and Russian president Vladimir Putin getting his tuppence worth in about the ongoing opposition in many quarters to Russia's allocation of the 2018 World Cup Finals. The arrests were carried out the day before the beginning of FIFA's general congress in Zürich, which had the FIFA presidential election as its headline act. There was even an anonymous bomb threat at the congress venue, but a search was carried out and the venue was declared safe.

The arrests only added to the controversy surrounding the election, as much of the world's media and many football fans clamoured for the removal of Sepp Blatter as FIFA president, just as they have done for years. However, the expectation was that Blatter would be re-elected as FIFA president at the organisation's general congress, and the vote, which was held on 29/5/15, underlined this expectation.The result, which saw Blatter collect 133 votes to 73 for his rival, Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein of Jordan - there were 3 abstentions - was not enough for Blatter to claim outright victory after the first round of voting. However, Prince Ali declined to move on to a second round of voting and instead decided to concede defeat.Still, the margin of victory may have displeased Blatter somewhat as it wasn't quite the near-unanimous vindication of his rule he had hoped for. Greg Dyke, chairman of the FA, said that FIFA needed a drastic overhaul and clean-up, but added that Blatter was not the man for the job. He addressed Blatter directly, according to a report from the BBC: "This is not over. A third of delegates say they've had enough of your failure to deal with corruption.. [FIFA] needs a change of leadership and root and branch change." Dyke added that the result will have come as a "shock" to Blatter.

However, Dyke and the FA have also come under attack during the course of the season just ended. The FA have not acted to force clubs to make match-tickets cheaper for fans, especially for those following Premier League clubs. Kick-off times for televised matches do not seem to take into account the inconvenience caused for many away fans. The demand for safe standing is growing, but this has been ignored thus far by the FA. There have been complaints that Arsenal and Aston Villa have each been allocated only 25000 tickets for the FA Cup Final on 30/5/14 and that ticket prices for te match are extortionate, and even that certain banners have been banned from the final. Perhaps change is needed within the FA as well as within FIFA.

The US Attorney's Office, in the person of US Attorney General Loretta Lynch, delivered a 47-charge indictment on 27/5/15 against 14 individuals, charging them with (in the words of the FBI's own press-release) "racketeering, wire fraud, and money laundering conspiracies, among
other offenses, in connection with the defendants’ participation in a
24-year scheme to enrich themselves through the corruption of
international soccer." Seven of them were arrested at a hotel in Zürich that very morning.At the same time as the arrests were made, police officers entered the CONCACAF headquarters in Miami with a search-warrant.

The seven individuals arrested were: Jeffrey Webb, a native of the Cayman Islands and president of the local FA, executive committee member of the CFU (Caribbean Football Union) and current CONCACAF president, who was tipped by Sepp Blatter to be a possible successor; Eduardo Li, president of the Costa Rican FA and executive committee member of CONCACAF; Julio Rocha Lopez; former footballer and current president of FENIFUT, the Nicaraguan FA; Costas M Takkas, former secretary general of the Cayman Islands FA, attaché to Jeffrey Webb and CFO of Abakan Inc. a company dealing in metal coatings and components for the oil, gas, mining and defence industries, amongst other things; Eugenio Figueredo, FIFA vice-president, ex-Huracán Buceo player and former president of both the Uruguayan FA and CONMEBOL; Rafael Esquivel, president of the FVF, the Venezuelan FA, member of CONMEBOL's executive committee and the FIFA disciplinary commitee; and José Maria Marin, ex-president of the CBF who briefly played for São Paulo, and president of the 2014 World Cup organising committee.Several other individuals were also indicted by the FBI on Wednesday, including an individual not exactly unknown to these pages: our old friend Jack Warner, ex-vice-president and executive committee member of FIFA, president of CONCACAF and the CFU, who turned himself in to the Trinidadian police upon hearing of the charges laid against him. Nicolás Leoz, another former FIFA executive committee member, ex-president of both the Paraguayan FA and CONMEBOL, was also indicted.Four of the defendants currently hold executive positions in the world of sports marketing: Alejandro Burzaco, CEO of Torneos (formerly known as Torneos y Competencias), a sports marketing company based in Buenos Aires; Aaron Davidson, president of Traffic Sports USA - based in Miami - which is a subsidiary of Grupo Traffic, itself based in São Paulo; and father and son team Hugo and Mariano Jinkis, owners of Full Play Group which is based in Argentina. José Margulies, a broadcasting executive and owner of Valente Corp. and Somerton Ltd., based in Brazil. Margulies was the supposed intermediary between the aforementioned four gentlemen and many of the officials mentioned above.Chuck Blazer, whose name has also graced these pages on occasion, was the man whose testimony got the ball rolling, so to speak. Back in late 2013, he pleaded guilty to 10 counts of racketeering, tax evasion, "wire fraud", money-laundering and a failure to fill in a form detailing his foreign bank accounts. Two of Jack Warner's sons, Daryan and Darryl, were also arrested in 2013; José Hawilla, founder and owner of Grupo Traffic, was arrested in 2014. All three had charges made against them for money-laundering and the "structuring of financial transactions" (for example, transferring a large amount of money via many small-sized transactions in order to avoid creating specific records on bank statements; under American law, financial transactions of a value exceeding US$10000 have to be declared). Hawilla was also charged with wire fraud and racketeering. Daryan Warner was also charged with money-laundering. The three gentlemen pleaded guilty to all charges.Around 24 hours after the arrests were made in Switzerland, Russian president Vladimir Putin, in a blatant case of double-standards not lost to those monitoring the situation in Eastern Europe, accused the US government of attempting "to spread its jurisdiction to other states" in carrying out the arrests and that, in doing so, they "illegally persecute people." Putin continued by saying that the arrests were a "clear attempt" to stop Blatter's re-election, and an attempt to wrest the 2018 World Cup away from Russia. Earlier that day, Swiss investigators launched their own investigation into whether, in the words of the LA Times, "inappropriate influence" was used to award the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the following tournament to Qatar, and will surely discover any cover-up, which will have seismic repercussions. The timing was ironic, coming on the day when Putin signed a decree proclaiming that all military deaths, in time of war or peace, will be classified as state secrets. If that wasn't enough, David Cameron performed another death-defying bandwagon-jump when he said that it was "unthinkable" that Blatter would be re-elected for a fourth time. (Now Cameron knows what many people in the UK think about his recent re-election as prime minister..) But that's enough of politics for now; this is an article about football - sort of..

Predictably enough, the media weren't long in reacting to Blatter's re-election; the British, American and Australian media all roundly condemned Blatter being voted in for a fifth term. Elsewhere, Roy Gachui, writing in Kenya's Daily Nation, said that Blatter didn't start the culture of corruption within FIFA, but merely "perfected it." He added that "mega-sponsors like Coca-Cola, Adidas, McDonald’s and Visa have
made weak calls for the owner of world football to clean house and raise
his ethical standards. This is just like animals in the jungle releasing a statement calling on the lions to eat healthy by becoming vegetarians."It could also be argued that some of FIFA's sponsors have themselves also had a rather chequered history, but that's another story.

Gachui's comments were echoed by an editorial which appeared on the Irish Times website: "Blatter’s re-election suggests that a majority of those with power
within the organisation has no desire to see any..change. The
tame expressions of concern from the organisation’s multinational
sponsors do not provide much by way of encouragement either..Those who claim to love football must abandon the pretence that the sport can ever effectively police itself."

The Frankfurter Allgemeine's Eva Simeoni wrote that Blatter's "previous attempts at reform had not been enough by far" and that his power-structure within FIFA had been based on "dependency, financial deals and knowledge of secrets." On the other hand, Simeoni was also of the opinion that the fact that the "majority of European football associations, including the German FA, supported a Jordanian, only shows how weak they are. No-one dared to take [Blatter] on, not even UEFA president Michel Platini."

So, it's business as usual at FIFA, for now, at any rate. Despite Sepp Blatter's claims that FIFA is successfully tackling corruption, not enough evidence has emerged from within the organisation itself to convince those on the outside looking in.

As it is, most of the rest of the world outside Europe voted for Blatter. Yes, there may have been backhanders, more than the occasional verbal faux pas from the diminuitive Swiss gentleman and so on, but it is hard to deny that FIFA has done much good work since Blatter became president in 1998, especially where the smaller countries are concerned.

FIFA's lesser lights would possibly have had cause to be concerned if Prince Ali had been elected; each country, large, small or somewhere in-between, receives a grant of at least US$300000 per year from FIFA. Under FIFA's Goal programme, over 700 projects, ranging from technical centres in American Samoa and San Marino to artificial pitches in countries such as Djibouti, have been completed.Contrast that with UEFA's approach; they were the first confederation to knock the smaller countries - its own - into a corner when they introduced the Champions League back in the early 1990s, and they have been kept there. There have been grumbles within UEFA, and louder complaints in sections of the European media, about voting rights within FIFA and the fact that votes cast by the smaller member associations have the same power as those from larger ones.

Even erstwhile presidential candidate Michael van Praag, in an interview with Voetbal International before Christmas, found it unpalatable that a country "in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with three football pitches has the same voting rights as Germany or England." Sorry, but that's democracy for you, even within FIFA. Would the same people be pleased to wake up on the day of a general election and find that their vote only counted for half of what it did when they went to bed the night before? Disagree if you will, UEFA may
well choose to leave FIFA and set up its own organisation, which would
adversely affect football in the rest of the world, both financially and
in a purely football sense.The larger associations within UEFA have to realise that, although the majority of money - and the majority of debt - in the club game revolves around European club football, they are still out of step with the rest of world football. The footballing culture is different outside Europe, even the playing-season is different. Not every football fan residing outside Europe is a slave to the Champions League, La Liga or the Premier - to quote Brian Glanville, "Greed Is Good" - League, and many - also within Europe - will doubtless worry about the future for football in their own countries should an UEFA-centric candidate land the job of FIFA president at some point in the future. Unpalatable as it may be to those of us who want to see an end to corruption within football, in all its forms both within and without FIFA, Sepp Blatter is still the organisation's top dog, but perhaps this week's events will start a process which will ultimately show that no-one is untouchable. The FBI may only have acted because many of the offences under which the Gang of Fourteen have been charged took place on American soil and/or the transactions said to have taken place were performed using the American dollar as currency (which the media seems to have largely ignored), but it does give hope to those looking to for football to clean up its mess across the board. After all, we football fans will clutch at any straw offered to us..but we should make sure that we clutch at the right one.

Thursday, May 21, 2015

At the time of writing, there is just over a week to go until the great and the good (or not-so-good) in the world of football converge on Zürich for the FIFA Presidential Election, with four gentlemen standing for the top post - whatever anybody from the NF-Board or ConIFA might say - in global football.The current president, Sepp Blatter, contrary to hints and promises made down the years, will be standing for a fourth term. Attempting to unseat him are Michael van Praag, chairman of the KNVB (Dutch FA), Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein, head of the Jordanian FA, and Luis Figo of Barcelona, Real Madrid and Portugal fame.Of the four, only Blatter has declined to issue a manifesto, claiming that his past record speaks for itself. Pat's Football Blog wrote to all four candidates on a number of occasions, Blatter included, in an attempt to elicit their thoughts on different subjects touching on the smaller members of FIFA, and also on those countries/nations which are still outside FIFA's remit.

Now, transparency in FIFA, goal-line technology and video technology in general were all - rather predictably - covered in the media ad nauseum, so no questions were put to the candidates as to their thoughts on these subjects. (On reflection, perhaps the question "Will you promise to do away with any thoughts of goal-line and other video technology, and instead re-humanise football by increasing the number of goal-line assistants, and also exiling to north-east Greenland each and every one of those hysterical stadium announcers who try to sex-up the pre-match "entertainment"?" should have been posed.)

The main body of the e-mail forwarded for the attention of all four candidates was as is stated below; there were, of course, one or two minor tweaks depending on the candidate, but you get the jist.

"Firstly, I would appreciate
it if he would kindly inform as to [name of candidate] thoughts about combating match-fixing, racism,
sexism, homophobia - in fact, all forms of bigotry - within football, and his opinions
on the full inclusion of the disabled within the football community.

"I
would also like
to find out more with regard to his stance on football in the smaller
countries within the FIFA
family
as it would appear that those countries in the lower echelons of FIFA
are constantly being squeezed out by the
bigger
member associations, in both sporting and financial respects. What does
he intend do to help the smaller FIFA member countries in the event
that he is elected
as FIFA President?

"I would also like
to request his thoughts on a couple of other subjects to do with football in
the smaller countries across the globe.."

"First
of all, why
have, in the opinion of [name of candidate], countries such as Palau, Tuvalu
and the
Federated States of Micronesia thus far been refused entry into the FIFA
ranks?
They are, after all, independent states, they possess football pitches
and have
the basic infrastructure needed to host international football matches -
and to
accommodate visiting sides. Should [name of candidate] be elected as FIFA
President, would he ensure that the associations representing the
aforementioned countries be admitted to FIFA under their tenure?

"Also,
should [name of candidate] be elected as FIFA President, would
FIFA be willing to give financial
and logistical assistance to countries such as Nauru and the Marshall
Islands
in order for them to set up their own viable football structures?

"Under
his tenure, would the rule barring football associations from countries
not directly affiliated to the United Nations be lifted?

"If so, would the Gibraltar FA, already a member of UEFA, also be accepted into
FIFA at long last, having also been unjustly refused entry? Would
Greenland's footbally association (GBU)
finally be accepted as a member country of both FIFA and UEFA after
being unjustly left out in
the cold for so long, and would [name of candidate] actively push for this to
become a reality? It could be argued that the GBU were victims of
circumstance.

"Would
other associations representing non-independent nations such as the
Falkland Islands and Niue also be considered for FIFA membership should [name of candidate] become president of FIFA? Would FIFA put aside funds to assist
the development of football in these and other territories/dependencies?

"What would be [name of candidate] opinion about the situation of the Monaco FA? They represent an independent
country and entry into FIFA (and UEFA) would certainly give them an incentive to organise
football there properly, as I believe that AS Monaco are the only team
currently operating within Monaco's borders. Would AS Monaco's participation in
La Ligue be a hindrance, in his view, to achieving member status of both UEFA and FIFA?

"Finally,
should [name of candidate] become president of FIFA, would he ensure that the
Oceania Football Confederation receive a guaranteed place at all future
World Cup final tournaments?"

Alas, although many an attempt was made to elicit answers to the above set of questions, the quest failed. No response was received from Luis Figo's camp or, predictably enough, the FIFA Media Office. Representatives acting on behalf of Prince Ali Al-Hussein and Michael van Praag did respond, but did not provide answers to any of the questions above; promises were made to provide responses should time allow them to do so.

Picking through the manifestos, all three candidates touched on combating match-fixing, and also discrimination of all kinds under the "racism" banner. However, apart from van Praag mentioning during his manifesto launch that the KNVB were the first football association anywhere in the world to fully integrate the LGBT community into its workings, no explicit mention was to be found anywhere as to how the candidates would tackle homophobia, much less the problems faced by disabled players and fans.

Prince Ali and van Praag did, however, state their intentions to increase funding for women's football, with the latter calling for equal representation in the boardroom as well as an increased female presence in the changing-room.All three candidates proposed an increase in funding for each member association from US$375000 per annum to US$1 million (van Praag) or US$2 million (Figo). Van Praag stated his intention to draw up a list of the 50 most vulnerable national associations within FIFA and to set about improving their infrastructures. Figo claimed in his manifesto that 150 national associations would benefit from an extra US$300 million set aside for infrastructure projects. Prince Ali didn't crunch numbers in his manifesto, but did state that there would be a substantial increase in funding for those associations in most need.

All three candidates included in their manifestos the requirement for development centres to be set up world-wide, with one being located within each member confederation. Said centres would be used to help hone the skills and knowledge of players, coaches and referees alike. This would certainly benefit the OFC member states, but the development centre would have to be located somewhere such as Fiji in order to facilitate less-arduous journeys for visitors from across Oceania and beyond. A regional hub would also be a boon for football in the Caribbean, which, like the OFC, has a large number of teams in the lower reaches of the FIFA rankings.There was a glimmer of hope in Figo's manifesto when the following header appeared: "I want to bring back unity in world football and to work together to improve and develop the beautiful game across all territories." Did this mean that he would actively tackle the issues put to him in the aforementioned e-mail? Would he co-operate with the NF-Board and ConIFA? Er, no; he merely stated his willingness to work together with all (member) confederations and member associations.Luis Figo called for an "open debate" on increasing the number of competing nations at future World Cups to as many as 48, whilst van Praag promised to work towards a future 40-team World Cup Finals, with each confederation gaining an extra place. Prince Ali was in favour of a "gradual extension" of the World Cup. Van Praag's proposal was the closest that any of the candidates came to confirming that, sometime during their hypothetical term in office, the OFC would receive a guaranteed place at any and all future World Cup Finals tournaments.

However, this was not explicitly mentioned in his manifesto, which, pound for pound, was actually the most impressive of the three issued by the candidates, but that, of course, is no guarantee of success. Despite a very solid manifesto, van Praag's campaign will probably be hamstrung by the fact that he is not very well-known outside European circles. Luis Figo will, perhaps fifteen years down the line, make a good candidate for the UEFA presidency, but is nowhere near ready for the rigours of that post, nor those of the FIFA presidency.

The smart money seems to be on Prince Ali taking on Sepp Blatter in a presidential second round. The Jordanian is good for a fair few votes from the Middle East; he is, after all, not only president of the Jordanian FA but also president of the West Asian Football Federation as well as a vice-president of FIFA. His campaign was supported by his home country's association, the FA, the Maltese FA, the USSF and the Belarus and Georgian football associations.

The MFA president, Norman Darmanin Demajo, endorsed Prince Ali's campaign by saying that the Jordanian understood the needs of the smaller countries. Prince Ali recently returned the compliment, saying that Darmanin Demajo was the inspiration behind his campaign. It remains to be seen whether Prince Ali will go on to fight Sepp Blatter in a winner-takes-the-FIFA-presidency contest, and, if successful, whether he will truly fight the corner of FIFA's smallest member associations, and those who are not (yet) part of football's biggest global family.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------STOP PRESS: It now appears as though, for the time being, four have become three. As this article was being finished, it was reported that Michael van Praag has withdrawn his candidacy for FIFA's top post, and he shall be making his reasons for his decision clear at a press-conference to be held tonight (21/5/15) at Amsterdam's Hilton Hotel. Van Praag will be throwing his weight behind Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein's campaign; Prince Ali shall also be attending the press-conference. For the little that it is worth, especially now, your correspondent's vote (had he had one) would have gone to van Praag.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------AUTHOR'S NOTE: Although none of the candidates for the post of FIFA president provided direct answers to the questions posed in the above article, thanks go to Sebastiaan van der Laan (on behalf of Michael van Praag's campaign team) and Laura Church (representing Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein's campaign team) for their responses.

Monday, May 18, 2015

The fixture-list for the 2015 NatWest Island Games men's tournament, to be held in Jersey in June, was released in late March, and features teams representing sixteen islands split into groups of four. The tournament kicks off on 28/6/15 with the Group A encounter between Greenland and Menorca at the Le Boulivot ground in Grouville. The two teams last met at the 2011 NatWest Island Games, which were held in the Isle of Wight; Menorca won 3 goals to 2.Since then, Greenland finished runners-up to hosts Bermuda in 2013 after a competition consisting of just four teams - the Falkland Islands and Frøya being the others. Greenland will be hard-pressed to replicate their achievement this time around, as the other teams in their group - Åland, Menorca - who will be hosting the NatWest Island Games in 2019 - and Saaremaa finished the 2011 tournament ahead of Greenland.Gibraltar will be sending their under-23 team to compete in Jersey, and will be up against Gotland, Guernsey and Ynys Môn (Anglesey) in Group B. The clash between the team from the Rock and the Channel Island will be intriguing; the Gibraltar FA, which is, of course, the most recent addition to UEFA's ranks, whilst Guernsey will mostly comprise of Guernsey FC, the side which appears in the Isthmian League, the eighth level of English football. Gibraltar won the competition for the first time in 2007, and Guernsey last won it in 2003. Ynys Môn have appeared in the final on five different occasions (the last being in 2001 when they lost to Guernsey), winning only once, in 1999. Gotland have yet to reach the last four of an Island Games tournament.The Isle of Wight, who won the competition in 2011 for the first time since 1993, will be favourites to qualify for the semi-finals from Group C, but the Shetland Islands, making their first appearance since 2009, will be fancied to finish second. However, the Falkland Islands, who finished third in Bermuda last time out, defeating Frøya 6:0 to lift the Small Islands Trophy in the process (Frøya are, like Bermuda, not competing this year), will be hoping to defeat the Norwegian island's neighbours Hitra, who are making a welcome return to the competition having last competed in 1999.

The keenly-awaited Channel Islands' derby between Jersey and Alderney at Springfield will, together with the match between the Western Isles and the Isle of Man, start the ball rolling in Group D. Alderney hosted Jersey in the semi-final of this year's Muratti Cup at the end of March but lost by five goals to nil, and it will be difficult to envisage Alderney gaining a point in what should be a very tight group.

Sadly for neutral fans, one Channel Island which shall not be taking part in this year's tournament is Sark. Secretary and co-chairman Chris Drillot informed Pat's Football Blog that they "shall not be sending a team as [they currently] do not have enough players to make it. We are just about getting enough [players] to carry on playing friendlies." A large percentage of the players in the Sark FC team are seasonal workers and, according to Section 6 ("Conditions for Representing a Member Island") of the IGA's Operational Guidelines, are therefore disqualified from competing in the competition.

Please find below the fixture-list for the 2015 NatWest Island Games Men's football tournament. GROUP AÅland, Greenland, Menorca, Saaremaa

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------AUTHOR'S NOTE: Many thanks to Andy Varnon, General Secretary of the Island Games Association, for his kind assistance with regard to the above article. Much of the above information was gleaned from the jersey2015.com website.

Other information was taken from the Island Games Association website, personal archives and the Jersey FA website. Thanks, too, to Sark FC's Chris Drillot; it is a pity that Sark will be unable to compete in Jersey this year, but good luck to him and the team for the summer season.

To peruse the Operational Guidelines of the Island Games Association, please visit the following link on the IGA website:

http://www.iiga.org/media//constitution/Operational%20Guidelines%20April%202014.pdfAs ever, errors and/or omissions shall be taken care of upon notification of same.

About Me

I am an Irishman in exile; a dedicated follower of football (above all, of Liverpool and Newry City), a fan of the round ball but not neccessarily all that goes with it.
My intention was just to use this blog for writing practice, and write about those people and places on the football (soccer) front that seem to go unnoticed. If, by some chance (or misfortune), you find something written here worth using/writing about, PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE AND SEND COPY. Ideas, compliments, complaints and contributions are more than welcome. In any case, hope you enjoy it.
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